Sweet Lorraine Gallery is pleased to present Bloom, a solo exhibition of Linda Tharp’s recent paintings and monotypes.

Bloom can be flowering, soft petals pushing through the hard casing of a bud. It is also the bloom of mold through the rind of a cheese or a damp wall; the efflorescence of mineral salts on the surface of concrete; the bloom of oil on water or algae in the sea. In this sense bloom is a condition of change, a transitional place between one substance and another. It is a process where transformation occurs from within and without simultaneously, which finds a parallel in the abstract paintings and monotypes of Linda Tharp.

Tharp works with fluid color, brushing, wiping, splattering, and allowing it to flow on the surface, where it coheres into organic forms in some spots and disperses entirely in others, sinking into the canvas or paper. There are open spaces where pigment has coalesced in rings around puddles of solvent; and negative splatters where solvent thrown onto a wet painted surface removes rather than adds color. With a shimmer and shift of subtle hue, shapes open up from the surface and sink back into it.

There will be a reception for the artist with wine and hors d’oeuvre on Saturday, April 14, 6-8pm.